ENDGAME
by Bellephont17
Summary: "The dissenter's blood must be spilt, or the loadstone returned to its people. You choose. In this final test of clan loyalty, you can redeem yourselves, and save your brother from blood vengeance." Post-Blackout.
1. Preface

**Preface **

As you know, less than a week ago I finished my novel-length Cal Leandros fan fiction, _Half_. This came as a great relief to me, and I promised myself a long vacation from any more such commitments, perhaps a drabble here and there just to keep my fanfic muscles exercised. Send the boys on a picnic, maybe delve deeper into some of Rob's less explained passages to find internal conflict and hidden memories . . . usual stuff, nothing big.

However, I am afraid the picnic will have to be put on hold.

Sorry, boys.


	2. Prologue: Dissenter

_A/N: Sorry it took so long to get started :) I was graduating and then I had company. But now we begin!_

**PROLOGUE **

**Dissenter**

_**Niko**_

It was three months since I'd gotten Cal back. He'd been on an extended vacation inside his own head, leaving someone half as smart and twice as happy in his place. I think this was the first time one of Cal's many 'extended vacations' left me in a worse position than it had him. When he'd been in Tumulus, when he'd been possessed by the demon that called itself Darkling, he'd always gotten what they call the short end of the stick. Not so this time. This time, he was happy – in a deluded, only-half-awake sort of way. This time, I'd been the miserable one. I'd thought I'd lost my Cal – the real Cal – forever. I'd opted for that choice for his benefit, lied to my amnesiac brother, poisoned him, and lost what little honor I had in the process. But now that was all in the past, and the past is best left forgotten – when possible.

It had been three months. And Promise had finally been able to do something I could not – convince Cal to get his hair trimmed. I don't know what he'd done to himself during that second trip to Nevah's Landing, we didn't talk about it. All I knew was that he came home with even less hair than he had when he left. It looked like a mangled bird's nest that had been through several tornadoes, and still he'd waved away all prompts to get it trimmed. Until today.

Promise had finally had enough and dragged him to one of her top-notch beauty salons to get it weed-whacked. In the meanwhile, I had a free afternoon. The dojo was closed down for a few weeks for renovation, and next term hadn't started yet. So I was at the library, at a table in the nonfiction section in a blissfully secluded corner of the first floor, a stack of thick books piled at my elbow.

Recently, I'd become interested in refreshing my memory of Gypsy culture. After the road trip fiasco and the whole Abelia Roo thing, I'd decided that perhaps I'd better expand my education to encompass Cal's and my human heritage as well as his supernatural one. Just in case. And yes, I am anal retentive, a worrywart to the umpth degree.

It was actually quite fascinating. This particular professor – a gypsiologist, apparently – had compiled a dictionary of cultural and folklore terms particular to the Gypsy way of life in the 1800s. I found myself smirking at the love filtres and sympathetic magic that transferred fevers into trees that apparently pervaded our cultural history. Other things struck me as strangely relevant – the need to be constantly on the move was familiar to me, as was the customary retaining of long hair among the Gypsy males.

What was perhaps most fascinating was the fact that the traditional Gypsy mythology consisted mainly of demons (whom I immediately associated with the Auphe), vampires, and werewolves. "We've been steeped in our own culture and haven't even known it," I muttered to myself, flipping the page.

To my eternal embarrassment, I was so engrossed in my studies that I did not sense the man behind me until it was too late. My ear prickled as a muffled, creaking footstep registered. Closing the book softly, my hand moving immediately to my duster's pocket (I kept my jacket on at all times when away from the apartment, even indoors). My fingers had only brushed the tanto knives secreted inside the innocent gray duster when someone's hand grabbed my braid and yanked my head back. The cold flat of a knife was laid against the side of my head, running parallel to my profile.

My hand's journey into the armory that was my pocket had been halted briefly by this startling factor, but once I was sure that I wasn't going to be dispatched that instant and it was merely a scare tactic (why play with the blade otherwise?) I continued reaching for my own weapon.

"And you are?" I asked dryly, hoping to distract whoever it was behind me. Whoever it was, he was human. I couldn't smell monsters like Cal could, but I was pretty sure no self-respecting monster would take out a victim using something as mundane as a knife. Especially not when it was endowed with its own lethal set of claws/teeth/pincers/what have you.

"The question is who _you _are." The voice was deep and accented. "Nikolas Leandros of the Vayash clan. Dissenter."

_Nikolas? _That was new. As far as I knew, no one had ever called me by that name. Not even Sophia. And dissenter? That one wasn't too difficult to puzzle out. But this was not the time for Socratic pondering. Despite what Cal thought, I was, in fact, capable of abandoning logical reasoning for the cruder art forms, including slicing and dicing whoever was pulling a knife on me at the time. My tanto knife was in my hand, soon to be in my would-be attacker.

Flashing my knife up, I slashed it across the man's knuckles as he pressed his own thick blade against my face. The instant his grip let up, I sprang from my chair and whipped around, leg extended for a judo kick that knocked the man into a discarded trolley full of books. Man and cart crashed to the floor. I was on top of him in nanoseconds, straddling him and – after wrestling his own weapon away from his sweaty grip – putting my own knife to his throat. I used the sharp side. No playing for me.

"Talk," I ordered, not bothering to expound. He'd know I didn't mean discuss the weather. "Now."

The man was dark, swarthy, with greasy black hair that fell around his head like a mane. He was dressed in a gray, sweat-stained polo shirt with an open collar revealing a chest full of coarse black hair. His eyes darted over my shoulder and he cracked a yellowed, chip-toothed grin.

_Damn_, I thought grimly. _There's another one. _I was losing my touch.

Barely had the thought registered when I began to choke. Pressure, tight and deadly as any strangler's fingers, was being applied to my windpipe. But no one was touching me. I levered myself off the man I had tackled, backing away, feeling my throat with my free hand. It felt normal, but I could have sworn my windpipe was being crushed by muscular, bulbous thumbs.

There was a second man, I could see now, standing a little ways off with his back to me. I couldn't see what he was doing, but it seemed that I apparently didn't pose much of a threat, as he had not bothered to draw the gun I could see bulging under the blue sports coat. He didn't even bother to look at me. Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn't help feeling slightly insulted.

The man with the knife was on his feet, advancing toward me, his hideous, stained grin splitting his broad face in half. I parried one blow, knocking his knife away with my own, but it was too easy and I knew he was simply playing with me. Keeping me occupied while some unknown attacker strangled me.

I tried swallowing but my saliva just pooled in the back of my throat, and I gagged on it. Black spots danced at the corners of my vision as my head went light with lack of oxygen. I backed into a bookshelf, slamming my shoulder and almost tripping.

Gripping the shelf with one hand, I parried the knife-wielder for all I was worth in those last few seconds before unconsciousness swarmed in to claim me like a host of malignant black insects. Finally, I managed to spin my opponent's weapon from his grip. As he dove after it, I shoveled my cell phone out of my pocket and hit Cal's number on my speed dial. Or tried to.

My air was gone, my movements off, uncoordinated. The phone was kicked out of my hand and plucked out of the air by my knifing friend. I watched him hit the power button on the mini keypad, my own power going out seconds after the cell phone's screen went black.


	3. Sweet Potato Hair Gel

**CHAPTER ONE **

**Sweet Potato Hair Gel **

_**Cal**_

Her name was Connie. And she was torturing me. My head was thrown back, neck uncomfortably exposed – I could just feel the teeth sinking into it. The base of my skull was crying out for relief as it was pressed against the rim of the basin. Cold water pounded my head in spasmodic sprays. Talons masquerading as fake purple leopard nails raked my scalp. Lather was slapped into my ears and flicked in my eyes.

I was sprawled out in the beautician's chair, legs far apart, hands gripping the arms of the seat. I grimaced, imagining how ridiculous I probably looked from anyone else's point of view. But seriously, I was dealing with a lot right about now. What in hell did girls like about this?

A jet of water caught me in the eye. "Shit," I spluttered.

"No kidding," Connie said over the rush and slosh of water, not understanding the curse was for her – or maybe simply overlooking it. "This hair looks like you hacked it off with a knife."

The irony of the situation making me want to pass comment, I rolled my eyes over to look at her, got a beautiful view of a stubbly and deodorant-crusted armpit, and quickly averted my gaze. Now _that _was just disgusting. For someone so obviously beauty-conscious as Connie, you had to wonder what she had against her underarms.

Finally, the water ceased its beating _rat-tat-tat _on my skull and a towel that smelled like someone else had just used it was flung over my face. Connie wrapped my head in it, then led me over to a chair and a mirror. Oh, damn, a mirror.

I looked over at Promise with what I imagine was a hurt and betrayed expression plastered all over my damp, dripping face. Niko's vampire girlfriend was tucked elegantly into a swivel chair, her mane of brown and blond hair piled on top of her head. She gave me a close-lipped grin. No fangs – no need to get the beauticians nervous, not with all the sharp scissors and shit they had instant access to. To tell the truth, though, she didn't need the fangs. Her pale skin, her exotic hair, her violet eyes, and the ridiculous black cape they drape over you like Dracula's hypnotic cloak made her a perfect candidate for one of Bram Stoker's mist-shrouded castles.

"So, how are we cutting your hair today?" Connie asked conversationally, getting between me and Promise before I could give the vampire an evil glare. "Have we picked out a style?"

_We? What was all the "we" shit? _I _wasn't cutting my hair, _she _was. _Ah-hah. She was trying to ditch sole responsibility for whatever happened to my head between now and the time I walked out the salon door. I shrugged, keeping my eyes averted from the mirror.

"Just a trim," Promise's voice came from behind Connie. "Do whatever you have to in order to get it looking halfway decent."

"Should take some doing," Connie chewed her lip and studied me like Niko studied the cover of my latest library loan. Critical and disgusted, with a little pity mixed in for good measure. "Maybe we should just buzz it. Crew cuts are in now, anyways."

"No way," I objected loudly before Promise could consign me to a fate worse than death. "Just . . . shit, do whatever, just _don't _buzz me."

Connie laughed loudly. "Okay, then, we'll just take a little off the edges and make it all nice and even."

"Yeah, let's do that," I said blandly, ducking my head to keep the mirror out of my line of vision.

"Whoops, we have to keep our head straight." Connie slapped her hands on either side of my head and twisted it so I was facing the mirror directly. I stiffened and closed my eyes, breathing curses between clenched teeth.

"Oh." Promise had finally caught on, had she? Good for her. "Excuse me, Connie? I'm sorry, he has a rather delicate condition when it comes to mirrors. He can't look at his reflection." Wow. Points for diplomacy, right there. Don't mind that it made me sound like a total schizophrenic or anything.

"Oh . . . hmm. Okay, we'll just turn you around then." Connie, in a brilliant piece of mental achievement that would have done Niko proud, swiveled the chair around. I breathed a sigh of restrained relief, only to realize I was now facing the opposite wall, which was also lined with large mirrors; what's more, they showed reflections of mirrors in the mirrors. Darkling had a dozen outlets in this place. I groaned and closed my eyes again, reminding myself that I'd killed the slimy son of a bitch years ago. Even if I hadn't hacked him to a demonic pile of sludge, he'd be decomposed beyond recognition by this time.

"We'll be done in no time," Connie assured me, and I heard the snip-snip of scissors too close too my ears for comfort. When you live your life surrounded by clicking, clattering metal blades that generally mean death and dismemberment, the sound of scissors takes on an ugly turn.

"How are you doing, Cal?" Promise asked in that baby voice she reserved for me and the dead mummy cat she had taken off Robin's hands a few months back. I hated it when she used that voice on me. That and the petting thing. She took the "adopted little brother" thing a step too far, in my opinion.

"Yes, how are we doing, Cal?" Connie parroted, snipping happily away.

"If we don't get out of here in the next five seconds, we are going to scream," I gritted through my teeth, gripping the arms of the chair with a white-knuckled grasp. Torture. Sheer, frigging torture. The mirrors; the close, constant, physical contact with someone who chatted constantly in the plural; the blades clattering away right up by my head . . . it kind of made you wonder as to Promise's motives.

Connie guffawed in my ear, taking the mockery well, to her credit. Two seconds later, whatever credit I'd generously given her I took right back when she started slathering gel into my hair. Shit, it smelled like . . . _sweet potatoes._ Our apartment smelled like that for weeks after Nik had become infatuated with the orange horror.The Vegan strikes again. And now I had it all over my freaking hair. I didn't remember all this torment happening in Lew's tiny barber shop in the Landing several months back. As Connie reached for the blow-dryer, I realized maybe I should have just let her buzz it and have it over with . . .

Suddenly I sat up straight, back rigid. The grip on the arms of the chair doubled, the plastic squeaking under my tight fingers. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

_ Nik. _

It hit me like a punch in the gut. Okay, something was wrong. Massively wrong. He wasn't where he should be. Don't ask me how I knew that. Maybe it was the same thing that enabled Niko to find me no matter where in the globe I was. But I knew it and that was enough for me. He was not where he was supposed to be and shit if I wasn't going to find out why.

I reached under the ridiculous black cape and pawed for my cell phone. Connie, blasting the back of my head with all of hell's fury, complained that we were moving around too much and could we please sit still? I batted her away, getting up from the seat and tearing the cape thing off my neck.

"Caliban!" Promise called after me. "Caliban, where are you going?"

I pushed through the glass door that led onto the sidewalk and dialed Nik's number. I stood there, a cool wind funneling litter down the walkway and whipping my damp hair into my eyes, the phone pressed against my ear. My breathing slowed, then stopped altogether as the shrill rings cut and Niko's voice issued from the tiny speaker. A voicemail.

"You've reached number ###-####*. Obviously, I am not available. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when possible. If this is you, Cal, use your own judgment. I'll categorize: natural, good. Unnatural, probably bad. This goes for both food and acquaintances. Thank you."

This was the first time I'd ever heard his voicemail. He'd always answered on the first ring. If it weren't for the iron feeling in my gut, I would have been amused. As it was, I sat down hard on a bench set outside for people who presumably had to sit around outside the salon for a while to ponder if they really did want a haircut.

Maybe I'd pressed the wrong number. Yeah, right. That number was more familiar to me than my own phone's. It was the first number I selected whether or not I was actually planning on calling Niko. I tried again, just to be sure.

"_You've reached number . . ." _

I shut my phone in mid-recording and called Robin's number. Promise burst out of the salon while I was waiting for the puck to pick up his damn phone.

"Caliban, what is . . ."

I shushed her with a wave of my hand and a glare as Robin picked up.

"Caliban Leandros," he greeted me in his full, fruity, puckish voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? That's actually sarcasm, as I happen to be in the middle of a particularly . . ."

"Save it for _Playboy_," I snapped at him. "You hear from Niko recently?"

"No." A short, sweet answer. Robin was smart. He knew when I wasn't in the mood for rants.

My stomach tightened another notch. "You know where he is?" I ignored Promise, who was stooped over me, one hand gripping my shoulder, attempting to hear the conversation. I didn't feel kind enough to put the puck on speakerphone at the moment.

"Honestly," Robin said, maybe not as smart as I thought he was. "I might be a dismantled god, but that does not necessarily entail telekinesis. If I have not heard from Niko, how – pray tell – do you come by the supposition that I'd know where he is?"

The only reason I wasn't cutting him off was because you didn't hang up on your allies when you needed them. And I sure as hell needed every ally I could get at the moment. "He's not picking up. I've got this bad feeling. Something's wrong."

Promise's grip tightened as Robin's vocal cords failed to work.

"He said he was going to the library," Promise whispered.

Well, thanks for speaking up, lady. Much appreciated. "Hear that?" I demanded of Robin.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I suppose 'I'm on it' is a trifle cliché . . ."

"Fifteen minutes."

Robin began to object, but I cut him off. "Robin, if you don't have your self-proclaimedly well-toned ass on the library steps when I get there I am personally going to slice it into a hundred ribbons and sell them over EBay."

"Of all the . . ."

"For a penny a piece."

"My ass is worth a million times that," Robin retorted and hung up. He'd be there. Despite his cavalier attitude, he was worried. Niko was not only a brother now, he was a friend. A good friend, and one of the only ones the puck had. Anyway, all that mush to say, Robin would be there.

*edited for security reasons. Niko tends to locate callers whom he doesn't know and then ask them where they got his number. This is frequently answered quickly, due to imminent asphyxiation. Niko then tracks down the person who gave him his numbers and gives them an even harder time, often resulting in wiped computer hard-drives and temporary amnesia. I do not wish to lose my stories or my memory.


	4. Normal

**CHAPTER TWO **

**Normal**

_**Cal **_

Robin's ass was on the library steps when Promise and I skidded to a halt outside a parking zone in front of the curb. Kicking open the back door, I didn't stop to greet the puck, instead opting to run all around the library, eyes peeled for Niko's car. I didn't know if I wanted to find it or not. If it wasn't there, he might have simply drove off. If it was – were? – then that meant that Niko had left the premises on foot or in someone else's vehicle. And Niko wasn't exactly a hitchhiker.

I found it. The meter was running out, and the damn car was just standing there, silent and content and damn empty. It was locked, of course. Niko was nothing if not cautious. I pressed my face against the glass, not sure what I was looking for. A note? His body? An Auphe? I pulled away quickly, stopping that particular line of thinking. Don't get panicky. That's the worst thing you can do. Don't start imagining things.

I dug a few quarters out of my jeans and plunked them into the meter. The little digital clock went from thirty minutes to an hour and a half. I gave myself just that long to find my brother.

"Where did you go?" Robin demanded, ass still firmly glued to the marble steps.

"His car's still here," I said, jogging up the steps past the other two toward the front entrance. "Get up here, Robin. Right now. EBay is calling."

Robin and Promise were flanking me as I reached the wide double doors. "I take offense at this constant harping on selling my body parts over the world wide web." He stopped and grinned. "Actually, that's not a bad . . ."

I didn't bother waiting around to listen to the rest of that train of thought, pushing through the doors and entering the wide lobby.

Libraries had always held a particular terror for me. I could say that it originated from an Auphe attack at the tender age of five while I was playing with the toy trains in the juvenile section. But that would be a lie. Actually, it was being dragged along by Niko on what he liked to call 'field trips' that inspired such horror inside my breast. Our field trips consisted of sitting on a scratchy couch and reading thick textbooks on whatever subject my brother decided would be beneficial to my education: botany, the planetary system, geography, and – most frequently – mythology. Who said public school had anything over homeschooling? I mean, really, how many kids knew the gaseous properties of Venus and the biological reproductive cycle of a mushroom ring at the age of seven?

All that to say, right now a new kind of terror seeped into me at the sight of the shelves and shelves of multicolored books. They watched me walk through them like so many gargoyles, waiting to see what I would do. How I would react when I found . . . what? Surely security would have noticed a dead body, the smell of blood, the sound of a shuffle, a shout or a gun . . . I looked around. There was no one here. Don't ask me the hell why. Shitting coffee break? The point was, a mob could overrun this place and no one would know. God, no. Niko couldn't be taken that easy.

"Where do we look?" Promise breathed, peering at the map of the three floors.

"Nonfiction," I said flatly. Niko would be nowhere else. And because he so delighted in tormenting me by insisting I accompany him, I knew exactly where to go.

Me in the lead, the three of us wove our way through the deserted first floor to the back section, where bookshelves and brick walls created a nook that was private and secluded. Perfect for a day of uninterrupted study. Or an attack. Either or. Both were just as deadly in my opinion.

"I don't suppose you ever considered the possibility he might be out getting a frappe," Robin offered.

"Yeah, and he rang my little emergency bell because he was out of change."

The pile of books on Gypsy culture and folklore were enough to clue me in on which seat had been my brother's. It did help that the chair was kicked over, the white carpet spattered with droplets of blood, and a book trolley overturned. Volumes were scattered all over the floor.

"Frappe," I darted a dark glance at Goodfellow.

"Some people just can't handle caffeine." Despite the joking remark, his forehead was furrowed. Then, his voice softer and more solemn: "What do we do, Caliban?"

I glanced at Promise, who was baring her dainty fangs at the speckles of blood on the floor as though ready to bite the rug. Or maybe she was thirsty. "Relax," I said to her, my eyes locked on the mess in front of me. "Let's all just . . . relax. Right? Okay?" I took a deep breath, trying on the Zen thing for size. "Find our _chi _and that shit."

I walked around the miniature version of Ground Zero, looking for anything that would help locate my brother. I walked slowly between two shelves, willing my nose to pick up his familiar scent, just like a damn bloodhound. The others gave me my space, searching in separate corners for something that would give them a clue. But apart from the blood on the floor, there was nothing to indicate that anything but a clumsy librarian's assistant had hit this part of the building.

And then, a scent. Niko's scent – weapon's polish and fresh air and lemon-scented hand sanitizer – mingled with other smells, foreign ones that didn't belong in New York City. So someone, or some_thing_, had taken him. And they weren't from around here. As I had done with Sawney Beane that freaky night outside the mental institute, I followed Nik's scent. To anyone who didn't know me, it'd look like I was suffering from a bad case of allergies.

"You've found something?" Promise demanded, coming up behind me. Her perfume drenched the trail and I held up a hand to stop her in her tracks. She understood and hung back as I followed my brother's trail to the wide, sliding windows that looked out over the back parking lot. The empty parking lot. Whoever they'd been, they were gone now. Gone with Niko. And shit, there went my _chi_.

I dialed his number one more time, not speed dial, number by number. Just to be sure I got it right. I leaned against the window and talked quietly after his recorded message. "Niko, where are you, you bastard? We're at the library. It's a frigging mess. Why aren't you picking up your damn phone? Call me and tell me where you are. If you can't, don't sweat it. I'm getting in touch with Georgie. We'll find you." I paused. "Oh. I'll, uh, take care of the shitmobile. It's racking up hours in the parking lot and I'm out of quarters." Now I was just rambling. Maybe pretending it was just a normal phone conversation and everything was frigging normal. Although who was I kidding? This kind of crisis _was _normal for us. I sighed. "Just hang in there, be Mr. Sexy Super-ninja 'til we get there."

I pocketed my phone, not switching it off, just in case. Promise laid a hand on my shoulder, and I realized she had heard the whole one-sided conversation. That was a monologue. Or a soliloquy. I half-turned to her.

"Cal . . ."

"She's the only one who can find him."

Promise thought she knew how hard this was going to be for me to face Georgie. Niko'd have told her all about my sad little break up story. Thing is, she didn't know that I no longer wanted Georgie. I wasn't the same person I was when we broke up. When she left me that goodbye note, I'd been a boy with issues. Now I was a man with full-blown problems Freud and Jung could only dream of. I'd grown up in ways that she couldn't, and I knew now that I didn't want her, in the same way you didn't want to crush a flower under the heel of your shoe. But even if I had still wanted her, even if I knew it would tear my heart into pieces just to see her face again, have her hold my hand if only to read my palm . . . that wouldn't have stopped me. There were other things that would hurt worse if I never went.

"Look at this," Robin beckoned us over to the table where I assumed Niko'd been sitting. He had a slim forefinger on an open book.

I peered over and squinted at the words. "Linguistic Investigations. The first attempts to determinate the origin of the Gypsies through philological and linguistic study and examination began toward the end of the seventeenth century . . ." I glanced up at the others. "He was reading about Gypsies?"

"Apparently," Robin frowned at the book.

"Why?" I demanded. I picked the book up and skimmed through it.

"Maybe there's a clue in here somewhere," Promise offered. "Maybe his reading up on this had something to do with this disappearance."

I snorted. "Like, every fourth letter of every fifteenth frigging page read backwards makes the initials of the secret undercover group that broke into a library to kidnap him?" Upon her injured look, I amended. I was stressed as hell, but that didn't mean I had to take it out on my friends. They were only trying to help. Besides, the Gypsy book could have some kind of bearing. It was a stretch. But I couldn't be choosy. "Okay, I'll take it along just in case. See if I can find some hidden meaning. A cipher of some kind." I tucked the thick book under my arm, wondering briefly if this wasn't all just a huge scam to get me to read a textbook.

We left the library, Promise and Robin conversing anxiously behind me in muted monotones. I didn't think I'd ever heard them talk to each other so raptly. Usually they were at each other's throats. Niko the eternal peacemaker . . . even when he wasn't around to mediate.

"Robin, could you get into Niko's car? I can drive it back if you start it for me."

Robin struck off toward Niko's abandoned vehicle. I turned to Promise, who was extremely pale in the sunlight. I could see the skin on her cheekbones was beginning to peel from exposure. "I'll find him," I said.

"_We'll _find him," Promise corrected, pressing my hand before hurrying to her limo.


	5. Blood Vengeance

_A/N: Meeep! I love these boys so very very much – as if you couldn't tell. Lol _

_Can anyone spot the line taken out of Eoin Colfer's _Artemis Fowl _series? It was so Niko, I had to use it XD _

**CHAPTER THREE**

**Blood Vengeance**

_**Niko **_

As anyone who knows me realizes, I have a passion for pointy objects, preferably silver ones. In fact, I wear more blades than I do articles of clothing on a daily basis. I am never without a knife, sword, or hatchet of some kind on my person. Needles are quite different, however. I dislike needles intensely. Especially the hollow, hypodermic ones that are steadily depositing anesthesia into your bloodstream.

After what only seemed minutes of darkness, in which I woke to flashes of disjointed images – the back seat of an unfamiliar car, my body being dragged into a sitting position, a huge expanse of green, and a strong wind, I woke up.

At first it was only a slight tingling of my extremities, the sounds of reality drifting by me as I lay cocooned in my own dark, peaceful world. Then someone bent over me. My eyes were still closed – it was far too much trouble to open them – but I could feel the warm, shadowy presence of a second body close to mine. Cal? This threw me into a state of confusion. What in the world was he doing up while I was still in bed? I always rose before he did.

Had I been ill? I traveled back to that time when I had been eleven or twelve and had gotten pneumonia. I had been fighting a cold for several days, trying to conceal it from my brother, who had been extremely rattled because of a recent fight with Sophia. Then, one day, I just couldn't get out of bed. I'd tried, but I couldn't.

My lungs felt heavy, recalling the fluid that had threatened to take me away from Cal. I coughed, trying to rid myself of the sensation, and Cal's hand came down hard on my chest. "Wake up, Leandros."

Another terrible memory stimulated in my drug-soaked brain. Cal had called me Leandros when he'd been subjected to the amnesia-inducing poison from Ammut's spider friends. He'd refused to call me by my first name, something that had threatened to sap my strength from me as surely as the Egyptian goddess's stranglehold had. I tossed, trying to rid myself from that particular memory. The hand moved to my arm, squeezing hard. Too hard. It hurt.

I dragged myself out of the mire of sleep, dragging my eyelids open with a massive effort. They were heavy as lead – I'd always thought that particular expression a hyperbolic metaphor, but now I found truth in it. They were as heavy as my gray duster when it knives and hatchets were slung into the various pockets and loops concealed within. I caught sight of a low, sloping roof before my eyes closed involuntarily. I marveled at how weak the muscles around my eyes were, unable to keep my eyelids propped up. I wondered if there were exercises for these muscles. If there were, I'd have to teach them to Cal, although he'd probably complain.

I tugged my arm free from the vice-like grip, or attempted to. He hung on, gripping me far too tightly. Cal basically refrained from any type of physical contact unless it was imperative, like when he was drawing my attention to some form of danger that I'd overlooked. The strength of his grip must mean there was danger now.

My hand was reaching for where my sword normally hung. The hand moved to intercept it, gripping my wrist. "Don't try anything, dissenter. We've disarmed you and you've had sedative circulating in your system for hours now. You don't stand a chance."

Sedative. Disarmed. Fear gripped me and I struggled into a sitting position. I was twice the fighter Cal was. If they had managed to disarm and sedate me, what had they done to my brother? I was shoved back down, and I fell over limply.

"Where's my brother?" I slurred, annoyed that my tongue did not work properly. He'd been touching me a minute ago. I was certain of it. I cracked my eyes opened again and stared into the face of the man who now had me by the throat, pinning me to the bed or whatever it was I was lying down on. He had a lean, hungry face with thick lips and flared nostrils. He was dark-skinned, but his hair was paler than mine, drawn back into a knotted ponytail. "My brother?" I demanded again, my voice a little stronger.

"The half-blood? Alexi couldn't care less about the demon spawn, may he be cursed with the evil eye and damned to Bengel's bowels. It's _you _he's after." The man grinned, struck by a happy idea. "You'd better behave, or we'll send men back for him. They'll bring back his head. And while it is usually a misconception that we eat the bodies of our deceased, we might decide to make an exception."

I recognized the foreign terms. Evil eye. Bengel. Half-blood. Gypsy terms. I was reading up on such things in the library when . . . the library. That was it. The fight came back to me, driving away my previous groggy delusions.

Cal wasn't here, had never been here. That was good. Whether they'd simply not attempted to take him as well or he'd managed to escape somehow, it was good. What was less than good was the threats they were throwing in my face. Anger made my hands twitch, wishing for a weapon of some kind. People who talked about decapitation, cannibalism, and my little brother in the same sentence generally found themselves regretting it for the rest of their dramatically shortened lives. But the anesthesia was still heavy in my system, and there was the slight matter of what they'd promised to do to Cal if I got out of hand. I stared at him, the heaviness in my eyes leaving me.

"You're going to regret saying that," I told him calmly.

The Gypsy – I was convinced now he was a Gypsy, the complexion, the terms, and the talk of dissention all supporting this supposition – laughed. "Do not try swearing blood vengeance yet, dissenter. Not until your own debt has been paid. Then you can swear and draw the incantations of the gods upon us as long and loudly as you wish – only I doubt anyone will hear you when you are buried six feet under earth and rock."

"Where am I?" I demanded, gaining control of my tongue. My faculties were coming back. Maybe I'd be able to make my way out of wherever I was being held. "And what do you mean, my debt? I don't owe the Vayash clan anything. You cannot hold me accountable for Sophia's abandonment."

Apparently, these were tender subjects. The man's grip on my throat tightened and he dragged me up into a limp sitting position, his fingers crammed under my chin, cutting off my air. "That law-breaking bitch already received her judgment. Alexi made sure of that with his curses." He was speaking of her violent death – burned alive. These people were actually attempting to take credit for what had happened that night. I wondered if they even knew if the Auphe had played any part at all. "You, dissenter, chose your own fate." It was getting difficult to breathe, and I was getting tired of having to gasp frugally for air in the clutches of others.

While he had been speaking, I had been garnering my strength. Now, I kicked him in the leg, simultaneously cutting off nerve ending signals and dislocating his kneecap. With the heel of my hand, I rammed him in the gut. His fingers released their grip and he staggered back, wheezing and limping. I got shakily to my feet, and began searching the dim room for my weapons.

I was in a trailer, I realized. I'd been on a beat-up sofa that had been pushed against the far wall. The roof grazed the top of my head as I stood and threw my gaze over the small kitchenette and the narrow hall leading, no doubt, to a bedroom and bathroom. The door was closed, the windows covered, all of them undoubtedly locked.

The Gypsy pulled himself up and tried to take a step toward me, but his leg gave out and he crumpled to the ground with a shout of surprise and pain. "You make things only more difficult for yourself by attacking a fellow Gypsy."

Deciding I didn't very much care about that, I gave up searching for my own weapons, snagged a butter knife off the rack in the small sink, and knelt down before the man. The butter knife was greasy with peanut butter smears – I could tell from the cloying salty smell that so often accompanied Cal after lunch. I pressed it up to the man's throat.

"Now," I breathed, my head spinning from the remnants of the anesthesia. I struggled to make it look like my center of balance was not revolving on its axis and threatening to topple me sideways. Just how much sedative did they pump into me? "You are going to tell me where I am, why I am here, and how to get my things back."

"Or you will take my head off with a butter knife," the man joked, cocky for someone in his position. I had to admire his confidence. It reminded me a little of Cal's, stupidly self-assured even when his life was in danger. I wondered if it was a Gypsy thing.

This familiarity, however, did not warm my heart with fraternal affection. I shifted my grip on the knife to push the tip under my kidnapper's jugular. "I am certain I could make even this filthy kitchen utensil suit my needs . . . if necessary." My gaze asked the question for me: "Is it necessary?"

"No," the man answered. "No, I will tell you what you want to know. You need not demonstrate your skill with weapons. I am no fool." He held up his hands, but I did not release my hold or allow my weapon to lose pressure. Perhaps not so much like Cal, after all. Cal would never have given in this fast. This man was both wiser and more cowardly.

"First things first," I said, getting down to business. "Where are we?"

"Kirk Yetholm," grated the Gypsy, throat quivering under my makeshift weapon.

"Scotland!" I admit I was startled. For some reason, I had imagined myself still in New York. It seemed a little overcautious to actually bring me across the Atlantic. Unless, of course, my brother's reputation had preceded him. That thought made me want to smile, but I banished my amusement and focused on getting as much information as I could. After all, information is power. "How did I get here?"

"Alexi has many contacts. An American friend lent us his private plane."

Ah. The huge field of green I had caught a glimpse of was explained. A makeshift runway.

"Why am I here?"

"For your trial." The Gypsy grinned, and his teeth were stained yellow with nicotine. I was so close to him I could smell the cigarette smoke that had been baked into the soft tissue of his mouth. "To bring to pass the blood vengeance which was sworn on the day you became a dissenter."

My stomach twisted. A trial? I did not know exactly what "blood vengeance" was, but I could hazard a guess. But for Sophia's dissention? I wondered if blood vengeance sworn on a parent is instantly transferred to the child if the parent dies before the oath could be fulfilled. But that couldn't be . . . according to this Gypsy, the Vayash clan believed her own debt to be settled because of her gruesome ending. This was a new debt, but I was still rather groggy and time was of the essence. I could puzzle this out later.

"My things?"

"In a box under the sink." The Gypsy pointed to the row of counter-topped cabinets that formed the kitchenette's workspace.

I glanced at them, then at him. "I can also throw this knife," I told him. "You can move if you wish. But expect a sharp and fatal pain between your shoulder blades."

I wished I could demonstrate with a second knife, throw it over my shoulder to skewer the couch cushion on which my head had been previously pillowed. Just to illustrate the point. However, lacking a backup blade, I had to rely on my word alone. Hopefully it would be enough.

Getting to my feet with as much grace as I could manage (which wasn't much: I had to brace a hand on the wall to steady myself), I backed into the kitchenette, my gaze and my knife aimed at the man who still sat cowering on the floor.

Crouching by the sink, I laid my palm against one of the cabinets. "Which one."

"Third one from the left," came the grudging answer.

I counted by touch, not taking my eyes off the Gypsy. I opened the third cabinet from the left and risked a glance inside. A cardboard box sat there, filled with my knives. Several of my weapons' hilts stuck up above the top of the box, like desperate hands reaching toward salvation, me. Yes, I admit it, I have a strange affection for my weaponry and frequently resort to personification in my mind.

I pulled the box from its alcove and it fell to the plastic tiled floor with a clatter. Keeping one eye on my captor, I chose one of my tanto knives and exchanged the peanut-buttery kitchen blade for my rubber-gripped one. Confidence flooded through me as I held it in one hand, placing my other knives and several grenades into various pockets. My cell phone was at the bottom of the box.

I remembered trying to call Cal. The power was still off. I wondered if he'd noticed I was gone yet, if he'd tried to call. Had he left a message? Standing up, using the counter to steady myself, I turned my phone on, still keeping a knife trained on the Gypsy. He was being obedient, not moving an inch as I had reequipped myself.

I had three missed calls, one message. I listened to the message, Cal's voice filtering through the tiny speaker. He sounded panicked, I could tell from his soft, clipped voice, the heavy breaths in between the words, the incoherence of the words themselves. Damn, he sounded like a lost little kid. My heart went out to him; he was probably beside himself just about now. I knew how it felt to lose a brother, to turn around and find him gone. His going to Georgie after all this time was a testimony to that panic. It was going to hurt him to go back to her.

I wanted to tell him not to go, but the time on the message stated that he'd left the message almost four hours ago. He'd have already gone, but there was no telling what luck he'd had, or whether or not he'd even been able to see her.

Navigating to speed dial, I hit his number. No matter what information he'd gotten, I knew it'd calm him to talk to me. It would certainly calm me.

"Who are you calling?" the Gypsy demanded, fear in his voice. He made a move as if to stop me, but a twitch of my blade sent him right back into a cowering position. "You cannot call the authorities," he whined. "You are a Gypsy. You are _Rom_. You cannot betray us!"

"I'm a dissenter," I shrugged, feeling no need to allay his fears and tell him I was only calling my brother. I would have called the police as well, but as we were in Scotland, I highly doubted that 911 would bring any assistance.


	6. One Hell Of A Promise

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**One Hell Of A Promise**

_**Cal **_

I stood outside the ice cream shop, hating myself for being so shitless. I stood out of range of the window just in case Georgie looked outside. If she saw me, she'd most likely duck out the back way and then it would be hell trying to find her. If she didn't notice me until I sat down opposite her in the booth, I'd have a better chance of talking to her, getting her to look. And she was going to look. She was going to look if I had to sit on her, pry her eyelids open with one hand, and stick my other palm in her face.

Robin's fingers brushed my shoulder, bringing me around to the present. I looked down, realizing I'd been wringing my shirt, the black material now crumpled and pulled. I half-consciously smoothed it out while steeling myself.

Goodfellow leaned in to peer through the window at Georgie, who was sitting at the bar stirring a foam cup full of what was probably melted ice cream. Queen Frostine, that was Georgie all over. She didn't take money for her readings, she took ice cream. There was no one else in the shop, however, which probably meant she'd bought this one herself. "You know," Robin observed softly. "I could offer her my palm."

I gave him a look. I might not have been smitten with Georgie any longer, but _that _was an ordeal I wouldn't put a bitch through, much less a fragile person like her. "You're not serious."

"I am quite skilled at poker," Goodfellow said. "I don't let anyone see what I don't want them to see. She would not be sullied by what you call an errant lifestyle."

"No, Robin," I sighed. "Niko's my brother. I'll take the dive. I appreciate it, though. You're a good man."

Robin wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I am not a _man_. I am a _puck_. There is a difference. Quite a significant one." He clapped his hands together, promptly ending the conversation. "But enough dallying about in the ditches. We have things to do, people to save, palms to read . . ." He pushed through the door, setting the bells jingling merrily at his entrance. I followed, slipping quietly through, head down.

"We'd like a reading," Robin strode over to Georgie, who looked up, a bright and – I could tell – strained smile all over her caramel face. "How many chocolate fudge sundaes will it cost to assist us?"

Georgie's gaze had passed Robin's form and slid towards me. I was standing hunched behind the puck, and was caught off guard by the shimmering glassiness of her brown eyes. She looked as though she'd just been crying. Why was it I always managed to catch the girl right after a breakdown? It wasn't doing anything for my nerves, I can tell you that. "Hey, Georgie," I said, cracking a half-hearted grin.

"Hello, Caliban," Georgie echoed, purely formal. Her eyes snapped back to Robin, her face hardened. "I'm sorry, I can't help you. I was just about to go home for the day."

"Come, come," Robin tutted, encircling her shoulders with one arm. "You can manage one more futuristic scry. You can put a rain check on those sundaes and I'll buy them for you at a later date. In fact, a date doesn't sound like a bad idea, and I can think of things infinitely sweeter than . . ."

If Goodfellow had been anyone else but Goodfellow, I'd have intervened hotly and maybe slugged him one. But he couldn't help it. It was part of his puckish nature, and the only way to stop the advances were to freeze him away. Georgie was doing pretty good at the freezing business. Queen frigging Frostine, like I'd said.

"I'm not reading anymore," she stated coolly, head high. She could have passed for level-headed and unwavering, had I not caught sight of her hand, which was tightening around the foam cup and threatening to crumble it between tight fingers. "I've given it up. So unless you want an ice cream soda, I'd suggest you get out."

Robin backed off, glancing at me. My turn. I strode up to her and gripped her by the arm. She flinched at my touch like I'd scalded her, and whipped her face away so I was talking to her profile. "Georgie, listen to me. Niko's gone. He's been kidnapped, we think. We don't know where he went, so if you could just listen . . ."

She ripped herself away from me and sprang from the stool. She didn't run away, though she seemed like she wanted to. "I don't read anymore!" she insisted, fists bunched. "I told you. I stopped almost a year ago. Your brother . . ."

Ah. That day last winter when we'd been chased by the Auphe for the last time, Niko'd gone to try to convince Georgie to read the future for us. She'd refused, and Niko had lost his temper. Apparently he'd shaken her up quite a bit. Understandable, really. Shit, Niko _in control_ of his temper freaks most people out. No wonder she didn't want to help.

"Please just go away," she whispered.

"Georgie, you don't understand, I _need _you to do this for me," I urged, stepping forward, feeling anger of my own building but pushing it down before I scared her away. "I know you hate me – and believe me, you've got every right to. But do this one thing for me and I'll . . . I'll be with you, if that's what you want. We can start over, make it work, do it right this time." It was a hell of a promise, something that I knew I'd never get out of if she held me to it. I didn't want to have sex with Georgie. I was afraid of what would happen – for some inexplicable reason I was scared shitless. But if she still wanted me, I'd give myself to her. "If you look."

Georgie stared at me, eyes widening. "You'd . . . _be_ with me?" she whispered.

"If that's what you want. If you look for me." I couldn't believe I was doing this. But how else in hell was I going to find out anything that would help us?

She straightened. "Come over here," she said, turning and walking toward the back booth. Her long red curls streamed out behind her as she crossed the small shop briskly. With a glance at Robin, who was still standing mum off to the side, I followed her.

We sat down, and I held out my palm. She pushed my hand down by the fingers, and looked me in the eyes. "I've been having a terrible feeling about you and your brother all day. You were in my dreams last night." That would have sounded sexy and seductive if not for the way she said it. Instead of warming me in the abdominal region, it chilled me to the bone. When a seer has dreams about you, you know you're in deep shit. "I can't promise anything. It's been almost a year, and I don't know how strong my psychic abilities are. If I can't see him, will you still . . .?"

"Yes." _Just get the hell on with it. _

Georgie nodded briefly, then took my hand in both of hers and closed her eyes, leaning her head back. An expression of peace and contentment fell over her features. I knew how she felt – the same way I'd felt when I was gating, before Rafferty put a wrench in the works: _right_. What you were _meant _to be doing, what you were _made _to do.

Her thumb brushed my lifeline, my heartline, and I held my breath. In my mind, I traced the day's events, to help her along. The awful feeling I'd gotten at Promise's stupid salon, the failed calls, the abandoned car, the wrecked and deserted library, the blood on the carpet. Ugh, shit, the ball of worry in my stomach roiled into something bigger as I went over the events in my head. It hadn't been a pretty day, and I couldn't exactly envision it getting much better.

I was interrupted from my private musings when Georgie gave a gasp. I glanced over at her, and was amazed to see her forehead beaded in a sudden cold sweat, her eyes scrunched tightly shut as though battling a nightmare, her teeth clenched. She hissed in pain or fear or both, her chest rising and falling what seemed like a hundred times a minute. Her hands were trembling and wet against mine.

Shit, this couldn't be good news. My own stomach clenched as I imagined what she could be seeing. I wanted to shout at her, ask her what it was, but I bit my tongue. I might interrupt some psychic connection and a valuable piece of information might be lost down the tubes . . .

With a final cry, Georgie let go of my hand and fell back into the seat, breathing hard, eyes still closed. Robin was at my side in a second. "Well? What did she see? Why is she sweating like Aphrodite on her wedding night?"

"Shut up," I hissed, and leaned forward, feeling my heart thump against the plastic tabletop. "Georgie! Georgie, what did you see?" Maybe she hadn't seen anything about Niko at all. I had taken an awful chance by offering her my palm. Although she knew basically what I was, I doubted she knew the extent of my genetic makeup, and what it had made me do in the past. She didn't know about Darkling, about the psychotic events of the road trip, the deer . . . It could simply have been a quick peek inside my mind that made her go mad. Happy thought.

Our little seer opened her eyes and licked her lips. Her eyes were like an animal's, darting, frightened, intent only on survival at all costs. "We're going to die," she whispered. "We're all going to die."

Okay, that didn't throw me or anything. I fell back in my seat, feeling my heart slow to a dull thud low in my chest. _All _of us were going to die? Did that mean everyone within our little group? Everyone in the world? Was Niko's disappearance part of a larger plot to overthrow the world? I wouldn't be one frigging bit surprised . . . that was the Leandros luck, right there.

Robin slid into the stall beside Georgie, placing his hand over her trembling clenched ones. "Tell us what you saw," he ordered in a gentle voice I didn't remember ever hearing out of the puck.

It got a response out of Georgie. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and her eyes focused on me with an intensity that made me want to squirm farther back in my seat. "Black," she whimpered, raising a hand to pull the hair from her face. The hand went limp and fell back into her lap before she managed to complete the task. "Black like a cyclone rising up and covering the daylight. Our last daylight. The buildings – beautiful buildings, _our _buildings – crumbling. Trees bending, cracking, falling as we run, run . . . run." Out of breath, she closed her eyes and dragged in a parched gasp. "Not fast enough. There are too many people going in too many directions, people separated, screaming for each other. Children battered to death on the pavement by heedless runners. Theirs is the lucky fate." Her eyes grew darker. "Everyone is heading toward the boats, but the boats are gone, swept away. It is just as well . . . they wouldn't have helped us when the sky started falling. In fire and water, our whole world is consumed." She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. "We are lost. Lost forever. We're lost."

New York? Consumed in fire and water? I pictured the Empire State Building on fire, crumbling while the smog grew so thick and noxious, whatever little sky we could see disappeared behind it. Central Park's massive trees looking like a clump of dry grass spit out of the side of a lawnmower. I shuddered. What the hell could do that? What kind of creature . . . shit, not even the Auphe could do that. I doubted that even if all the monsters in New York got together to wreak bloody havoc they could create such an apocalypse.

"What about Niko?" I demanded, pushing pictures of horrible frigging anathema from my mind. My brother was priority, and I still hadn't gotten any information regarding him. "Georgie, what about Nik?"

Georgie looked up at me, lips white and wobbly. "Blood vengeance," she whispered. "Blood vengeance."


	7. The Calm Before The Storm

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**The Calm Before The Storm**

_**Cal**_

"What the hell is blood vengeance?" I demanded. Robin and I were striding back to Niko's shitmobile. A wind had picked up, whipping at us and blowing litter across our shoes. I leaned into it, head down, and walked faster.

"I have no idea." Robin went around to the driver's side of the car where I'd skidded to a halt in a no-parking zone. "I'm driving this time. We need not let Georgie's death-ridden prophecy come true sooner than it needs to."

I was getting into the passenger's seat, too wrapped up in thought to comply with my customary grumbles, when the sunlight disappeared. As the world went from bright to dark in an instant, I immediately thought of Georgie's insight and glanced up at the sky, expecting to see the swarms of Hades spiraling down on us. Nope. Just a cloudbank rolling over the sky-scrapers. For now, at least.

As we peeled away from the curb, I pulled out my cell phone and checked, just to make sure there were no missed calls. I knew there wouldn't be – the phone had been on and in my pocket the whole time – but that didn't stop me from checking. No calls. Not a frigging text. I sighed and flopped back in the passenger's seat, closing my eyes.

"You're handling this well," Robin's voice cut through my dark thoughts. "Better than Niko, if I may say so. He'd be climbing the walls just about now."

"Yeah," I grunted. What Robin didn't know was that I was climbing walls, but on the inside. I was barely holding it together; I knew that if I let go now, I could very easily scrap the car with my bare hands. But that wouldn't get me to where I needed to be any faster. But shit, I didn't even _know_ where I was supposed to be. Georgie'd been my last and only hope, and all she'd given me was a bunch of bullshit about the world ending and us dying. That and the appropriately obscure "blood vengeance" bit. She hadn't bothered to expound upon that, opting instead to break free from Robin's grasp and flee the shop.

"Who knows," Robin continued relentlessly, "we might find him wearing a gingham apron, eating French fries behind the bar of a café no one ever heard of."

"Ah. Ha. Ha." I grunted. "You're a riot, Loman. Now just shut up before I have to break out the duct tape." Why was he so damn _happy_? "I'm going to call Promise, see if she knows what this 'blood vengeance' shit is all about."

I glanced over at Robin as I put the ringing phone to my ear. The tendons in the puck's neck were strained, and I could tell his teeth were clenched. His hands were white on the wheel, and his eyes were fixed straight ahead with an intensity that made me extremely happy I wasn't the windshield. Not so damn happy after all. I turned away and talked to Promise.

She had absolutely no idea about "blood vengeance", but she did have a story. When she'd got back home, she'd found a staff leaning against her door. "Blackthorn," she'd said in a shaky voice. "A wood traditionally used to kill vampires. I could feel the mortal energy pulsing in the wood when I picked it up. Caliban, it has to mean something. Tie in somehow with what's going on."

"So some creep grabs my brother, leaves a stick at your door, and ties a yellow ribbon around the frigging oak tree," I grumbled, sitting a little straighter. I was pretending disinterest to keep hope from rising, but I couldn't help the flicker of excitement in my own chest. _Blackthorn staff. _I'd heard of that somewhere.

"Keep your phone on," I told Promise. "Call me if any more vibrating sticks show up and I'll keep you posted on the kidnapping situation."

"A vibrating stick?" Robin demanded, eyes darting from the road to me. "And what's that about yellow ribbons?"

I waved his question away as Promise voiced the question I knew she would. "Is 'blood vengeance' all that Georgie could tell you?"

I really didn't feel like delivering the mythologically-proportioned ultimatum to the vampire at the moment. "Just about."

Robin raised his eyebrow at me but – probably out of the instinct of self-preservation – kept his mouth shut.

"Alright." Promise disconnected, and I slapped my phone shut.

Once I'd asked Niko a question. Or rather I'd started to. I'd only gotten as far as the "If . . .", but he'd known what I was going to say. I was going to ask if I ran away, lost myself somewhere no one ever heard of me, changed my identity, got plastic surgery, lived underground, did anything and everything I could to make myself invisible to my friends and my enemies alike, would he be able to find me? He'd answered without hesitation, before I'd even gotten a chance to mouth the words. "Yes, Cal, I'd find you no matter where you went."

And he had proved it, too, only a few months ago. Hell, I'd woken up with amnesia in North Carolina in a little twelve-street village that was two steps away from becoming a ghost-town, and he'd found me. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if one day I was dropped from a helicopter into the middle of the Amazon rainforest with nothing but a pair of flip flops and a spork, Niko'd locate me in a week or less. And a week was being generous.

I was still waiting for my own internal brother-locator device to kick in. Shit, the least I could do was return the favor and find him for once. But I was out of batteries, the piece of crap had short-circuited, or I just was not in possession of one. Now that made me feel like shit. What kind of a brother was I?

It had started to rain; the windshield collected the pearly droplets of water and the wipers smeared them away. The watery yellow glare of headlights filled the street as the cars slowed from their twenty-five miles per hour crawl to ten miles per hour. We'd be on the road for a while. I watched the wipers go back and forth in front of me. In my bemused brain it looked like they were mocking me somehow. Don't ask me how windshield wipers could look like they were mocking you, but they were. Dancing and swaying easily and carelessly, right in your line of vision, while you stared out trying to see something you couldn't. And there I go getting all philosophical and shit.

"Where. Is. He." I demanded under my breath.

Robin opened his mouth, then shut it again, opting for a shrug.

Back at our apartment, Robin followed me up the back stairs and headed directly for the kitchen. "Can I get you something, Caliban?" he called, and I heard our refrigerator being pulled open with a hiss of the rubber seals and a clatter of Niko's all-natural salad dressings.

I didn't bother answering, slumping onto the couch in our living area. Sitting on the edge of the couch cushion, I placed my cell phone on the scratched-up coffee table, let my elbows rest on my knees, and stared at the gadget, willing it to ring. Hey, I was half Auphe – maybe I could do that. It was worth a shot. I sure as hell couldn't do anything else at the moment.

"You look just like your brother," Robin noted, coming into the room and shoving a sandwich into my peripheral. "Tea or coffee, either or?"

"Neither," I grumbled as I pushed the sandwich away. I realized that I did probably look extremely much like Niko: abandoning logic in favor of wild hope, staring at a dumb cell phone as though sheer willpower would make it ring.

"Niko would not appreciate my allowing you to starve yourself," Robin noted, deciding to risk his dignity and perch on the edge of our fifteen-year-old, beat-up, stained, ripped and otherwise used-to-death sofa. He pinned me with his green gaze until I hefted a half of a sandwich and bit into it.

"Thanks," I mumbled around the mouthful. Then I grimaced. "Is this . . ." I peered at the seeping green slime dripping from between the slices of bread. "Yeah, it is." Guacamole. Shit. I dropped the sandwich back onto the plate. Grabbing a pillow from the floor, I stretched out on the couch and shoved it under my head, turning to face the backrest. "Forgive me for being antisocial, but I handle stress by napping."

Robin got up, rubbed his hands together, and picked up the bitten sandwich. "Will the television bother you?" he asked, throwing himself into the armchair and snatching the remote from the coffee table.

I craned my head over my shoulder. "What exactly are you doing, Loman."

Robin shrugged, eyes on the television. "I can leave, if you wish," he said. "Niko seemed to find another presence in the apartment helpful . . . even if that particular need for company did not extend to the bedroom . . ."

I lobbed my pillow at him and he caught it easily with one hand, placing it behind his own head and reclining a little farther in the chair, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. I didn't tell him to leave. I just turned back to face the backrest. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, to lose my fears and gut-twisting worry somewhere in the realm of sleep, but it didn't work. The teenager ability to drop off into a coma at a moment's notice seemed to have deserted me. So I just stared at the ridiculous floral pattern on the sofa, tracing the threadbare weave of the material with my eyes, finding warped faces in the faded flowers, and trying not to think about my brother.

I remembered reading somewhere about the mafia in the mid-1900s dumping bodies in the harbor, putting them in barrels and filling them with bricks and just rolling them off a dock. I was reasonably certain Niko had not been abducted by the mafia, but I couldn't shake the image of his limp body being folded into a barrel and tossed into the Hudson. But that was stupid. Who would capture my brother simply to kill him? Our lives weren't that simple. If some freaking organization – natural or otherwise – kidnapped Niko, it was because they wanted something. Most likely me.

I groaned but stifled it when I remembered that Robin was in the room. I didn't need the puck oozing unnatural sympathy all over me. What could he do, anyway? Make me another sandwich?

The phone rang, the sound cutting through the monotonous fog of the droning television with its sharp, electronic shrills. Robin levered himself out of his chair, but I fell off the couch and grabbed it before he could reach it. Flipping open the cover, I held my breath as I looked at the number.

"It's him," I breathed.

"Speakerphone," Robin mouthed insistently.

I turned away from him, still sitting on the floor, and took the call. I was half expecting someone other than Niko to be on the other end. A gruff voice making a ransom demand, or – more probably – a trade agreement. A simple swap, me for him. I'd do it. "Hello."


	8. Authors Note

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

Hey, people. I won't be updating for several days, maybe even a week XO I'm getting a new laptop and getting back on track might take a while. Sorry about the delay! Hang in there!


	9. Do Your Homework

_A/N: Now I will begin taking liberties with reality. I will attempt to create believable scenarios based on factual evidence, but I will diverge from the path of reality several times in order to keep the plot. Please forgive me, all you gypsiologists out there who know that one gypsy was not allowed to kill another. If this were true, there would really be no story. Or no drama, at any rate. And what is a novel without drama? _

**CHAPTER SIX**

**Do Your Homework **

_**Niko**_

"Hello." Cal's voice was deep with tension. I closed my eyes for a second. I was far too far away from him. I was in Scotland, he was in New York. Neither of us had any way of getting to the other. If something were to happen over there . . . I banished the thought as Cal spoke again, louder this time. "Who is it?"

I composed my voice as much as possible, putting all my concentration into sending waves of calming confidence through the wireless miles across the Atlantic. "Cal."

"Nik?" And, damn, there was that lost little boy voice again. He sounded surprised to hear my voice, as though he were expecting someone else.

"I'm here, Cal."

"Nik, you damn frigging bastard . . . Where in hell _are _you?"

As he was speaking, the trailer door had burst open. Three more Gypsies entered the suddenly bright living area, their dark eyes pinned on me. The Gypsy I had had on the floor scrambled to his feet and ducked out the door with a last evil smile at me. I also recognized the Gypsy in the blue sports coat who had accompanied my knifing friend at the library. Once again, he was turned away from me, his hands hidden by the flap of his jacket. My trained eye wondered what kind of weaponry he had secreted there.

"Scotland," I muttered, tensing up, feeling the knife in my hand. I wouldn't get a chance to throw it. "I'm in Scotland."

"What the _hell_! Shit, Nik, what in hell are you doing in . . ."

"Who are you talking to?" demanded one Gypsy, and I recognized him from the library. The man who'd tried to knife me. "Shut the phone off and come with us."

"Nik, you still there?"

"Yes . . ." I said, mouth dry.

"I said to shut the damn phone off!" screeched the Gypsy, and a sharp pain entered my abdomen, a needle-thin blade through my stomach lining. I grunted in surprise and looked down, expecting to see some kind of hilt or grip jutting from my belly. Nothing – no blood, not even a hole to mark a point of entry. _Shit_, what was this?

". . . shit, Nik, what was that?"

"I'm fine," I said quickly, straining for some way to communicate to my brother what little I knew in a single sentence. This was especially difficult because I didn't know much myself. "Kirk Yetholm." Another piercing pain, this one right through my head, entering one temple and exiting through the other. I should be dead – it was a fatal blow. But none of the Gypsies had moved, and there was no weapon rammed through my head. Despite the obvious lack of weaponry or blood, I felt the metal sliding through the soft tissue of my brain, severing the arteries behind my eyes and cracking through my skull. Another suppressed grunt escaped my lips as I realized that it was the man in the blue sports coat – the one who had hidden his hands and was not looking at me.

"Cyrano . . ."

"One more word about our location and we hang the _kris _and finish you here," the Gypsy whispered. "Now shut off your phone."

"Do your homework," I told Cal, and disconnected in the middle of his exclamation of indignant confusion. My legs were shuddering beneath me, and I dropped the phone onto the countertop as I clung to edge of the faux marble to keep myself upright. "What do you want with me?" I demanded.

"Justice," whispered the Gypsy with a crooked-toothed grin.

The invisible thumbs of a giant pressed themselves against my wounded temples, cutting off all circulation to my brain, threatening to throw me into unconsciousness yet again. I lifted my hand to throw my blade, but a third ghost knife skewered my wrist just below my palm, and – fingers tingling with the shock of the pain – I felt my knife fall onto the cheap plastic tiling, hearing the merry twang of its metal hitting the floor before I did the same – but without the merry twang.

I wasn't unconscious, but I was smart enough even in my suddenly oxygen-deprived state to know that if I faked, I had a chance. As I had guessed, the minute I allowed my eyes to roll up into my head, let my jaw go slack, and toppled to the ground, the pressure on my temples was released. I let my eyes close halfway and watched as the shadowy forms approached me, sidling around the counter to stare down at my prone form.

Being on the ground while others looked down on me is not a familiar experience, and I must admit it is a quite unnerving one. While I was still miles away from gibbering pleas like a moronic revenant, I wasn't exactly at my coolest. I will make an allowance for myself by drawing attention to the fact that I was an ocean away from my home turf, in pain, and outnumbered by vengeful opponents who wielded some sort of advanced weaponry that inflicted wounds without bothering with being tangible.

As they conversed in what I imagined was the Gypsy tongue – something I had never bothered to learn and Sophia had never bothered to teach – I let one hand crawl toward my tanto blade, only to have a heavy and mud-encrusted boot stomp on my knuckles.

"Smart guy," sneered the Gypsy as I opened my eyes and glared up at them.

"Get your foot off my hand before I am forced to extricate it myself and consequently relieve you of an appendage," I warned coldly, pleased when they merely smiled and chose not to take me seriously. It was a mistake on their part.

While they were still chuckling in their bemused world in which they held the upper hand and I was merely something to be picked up, skewered, and tossed around, I was on my feet, knives blazing. I managed to slit my knifing friend across the wide rock-hard paunch and embed a blade in the shoulder of the man with the blue sports coat. He screeched and jerked away from me, bending double so that he could hide whatever was in his hands.

Before I could make a grab for his mystery weapon, the sensation of those same huge hands grabbing my spine and twisting it until the vertebrae popped and the bone tore filled my head, threatening to bowl me over. I lost all feeling in my limbs – my legs folded beneath me like useless strips of rubber. I cracked my skull on the edge of the counter, my ears ringing.

"Enough play," growled the spokesman, now holding his stomach with one hand while the blood dribbled out between his filthy fingers. "Take him."

_A/N: Sorry about the long, long, LONG delay – I'm working on other literary endeavors at the moment and probably will not be updating with the frequency you were accustomed to in _Half_. My apologies in advance. _


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